Teenager raped, suspect bolts from police station

The Inspectorate of Constabulary has launched a probe into Sunday night's escape of a rape suspect from the Waterford Police Station.

The inspectorate will also be probing reports that the police transported the suspect from the crime scene to the station in the same vehicle as the traumatised 14-year-old victim.

Yesterday, the head of the inspectorate, Assistant Commissioner of Police Wray Palmer, said he only learned of the incident when The Gleaner called him.

However, he said an immediate probe would be launched.

"We will compile the case file, we will review what we have, and we will see where we go from there in terms of the evidence that we will gather," he promised, while urging witnesses to report to the inspectorate.

Earlier, an aunt of the 14-year-old girl lamented that her confidence in the police had been shattered after witnessing the suspect escape while being escorted into the station. She said the cops have explained that they were not aware that the handcuffs being used were defective.

"If I knew that was the plan, I could have stopped him myself," she said.

The Gleaner has not named the aunt of the 14-year-old girl in order to protect the identity of the victim.

Abducted at knifepoint

The woman said the girl reported that she was on her way home off Maxfield Avenue in St Andrew when she was captured at knifepoint by two men and taken in a car to Portmore.

The aunt said she rushed to the Waterford Police Station sometime after 6 o'clock Sunday evening after receiving a call that her niece had just been raped.

According to the woman, who is a nurse by training, when she arrived at the Waterford Police Station, her niece was not there. But she said almost immediately after, a police vehicle arrived with her niece in the front passenger seat and the suspect and a cop in the back seat.

She said they all got out of the vehicle and, as the cops reached the door of the station with the suspect, he turned and ran away.

"In a station him deh, you know, and them make him get away," she said.

She said the police gave chase and, shortly after, two policemen left the station in a vehicle in a futile pursuit of suspect.

"You think he is going to stand up somewhere for them to find him back?" questioned the woman, clearly annoyed.

The child turned up at the police station to report the attack after the rapists allegedly threatened her and then released her. The 14-year-old girl reportedly directed the police to the house where she was raped, and that's where they held one of the suspects.

The matter has since been taken over by the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse.

Yesterday, repeated efforts to speak with the commanding officer for the St Catherine South police, Senior Superintendent Robert Bennett, were not successful.

The zone commander, Assistant Superintendent Charles Caine, who was in charge of the Waterford police Sunday night, could not be immediately contacted either.